Tuesday, July 1, 2025
This past weekend I went and saw the movie “Lone Survivor,” and I have to admit, yes, I cried.
In case you are not familiar with the movie, it depicts the days in late June 2005, and a mission dubbed “Operation Red Wings,” in which four members of SEAL Team 10 were tasked with the mission to kill or capture Taliban leader Ahmad Shahd.
The mission failed when three Navy SEALs were ambushed and killed and a reaction force helicopter was shot down killing all on board.
A settlement check issued by the state of South Carolina for the Southern Holdings case plaintiffs wound up nine months later in the account of an attorney not connected to the case.
After six years in litigation where the state Insurance Reserve Fund spent several million dollars on lawyers defending the case, a rushed “settlement” was allegedly arranged between lawyers for the plaintiff and lawyers for the defendants.
The alleged settlement took place behind closed doors with the federal trial judge, after jury selection was complete.
The I-73 project is back in the news as our local group of politicians is hoping to get a permit for the project from the federal government.
In these economically difficult times, fiscal responsibility, less spending, smaller government and lower taxes, is the refrain being sung by “conservative” politicians. If this is such a good idea, is it too much to ask our local politicians to practice what they preach, especially when it applies to big government projects like I-73?
Since the mid-1990’s, local politicians and business leaders have been saying the Grand Strand needs an interstate highway connection in order to sustain and build tourism. If you don’t believe it, just watch the advertisements, paid for by the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, on local television stations telling us just that. If they say it, it must be so.
The Horry County Infrastructure and Regulation Committee voted unanimously Thursday to remove construction and demolition waste from regulation under the county’s solid waste flow control ordinance.
The amended ordinance will now go to full council with a recommendation for approval. It will take three readings from council to make the amendment law.
The committee vote is a victory for small business and a reigning in of large, monopolistic government regulation of private business.
The “Big Talk” television political talk show is expanding its offerings after just two months on the air with the addition of the Big Talk Lunch Club.
Produced by Lucky Dog Television Productions, “Big Talk” features no holds barred discussions on local, state and national political topics of the day.
“Big Talk” is taped at noon each Monday at the Soho Restaurant located at 1300 Hwy 544, Conway. The show features discussion by Jon Bonsignor, Jack Murphy and Paul Gable.
When Horry County Council convened its fall budget retreat last week, charges of racism were the last thing I expected to hear emerge from the deliberations.
But emerge they did, exposing what appear to be systemic problems in Horry County government that go well beyond the simple balancing of revenues and expenditures.
The controversy started with a 6 a.m. Thursday morning (the day of the budget retreat) email requesting further information about the annual compensation package of Coast RTA CEO Myers Rollins. This started a two day email exchange viewed by Coast RTA board members, Horry County Council members and Horry County government staff as well as a phone call to Columbia attorney Jay Bender, an expert on the S.C. Freedom of Information law.
Horry County Council members approved a method for paying WestJet the approximately $583,000 it owes the Canadian airline from a deal approved by council last February.
The payment will come from accommodations tax revenue the county receives, called holdback funds, which council personally directs the expenditure of.
Hopefully council learned a lesson about attempting to buy business from this debacle.
It is ironic that the Michael Hilton felony DUI case had an important ruling just days before the Myrtle Beach city council elections are scheduled.
Hilton’s DUI accident resulted in the death of a biker and serious injuries to a passenger on the bike. That it has taken five and one-half years to get to the point where it looks like the case will go to trial is a black mark on what passes for a legal system in South Carolina.
But, putting the accident itself aside for now, the long term consequences of it are pertinent to the upcoming election.
Maybe a federal government shutdown isn’t such a bad thing for the citizens of the United States.
The only thing this 113th Congress has excelled at is being more polarized and less effective than the 112th Congress.
You remember the 112th Congress. That was the one that passed the Budget Control Act of 2011 that mandated automatic funding cuts of 5% across the board for the federal government if a Joint Select Committee on Budget couldn’t reach agreement on $1.2 trillion in federal budget cuts by 2013.
The Town of Awendaw under boil water advisory according to town officials in Awendaw, all residents serviced by the town water department must boil their water before drinking until further notice. A statement by mayoral candidate Joe Bowers follows.
The Charleston County Sheriff’s Office says this advisory will be in effect for at least three days.
Officials say crews are in the area of U.S. 17 North near Porcher School Road working to repair a break in the waterline.
Officials say water has been restored to most of the town, but residents near Porcher School Road will remain without water until the break has been repaired.
Speak Up…